Marvel Reveals Another New Comic Book 'Iron Man,' And This One's a Bad Guy

Just days after Marvel announced that Tony Stark would be replaced as Iron Man in its comic book line by a teenage girl called Riri Williams, a new wrinkle has emerged — Riri won't be the only new Iron Man, and her competition has a lot more experience in a suit of armor. Introducing the Infamous Iron Man: Victor Von Doom.

Announced via Comic Book Resources, the longtime Fantastic Four villain — who has been a supporting character in the current Invincible Iron Man series since its October 2015 launch — will become the second character to attempt to replace Tony Stark as the armored Avenger following the current Civil War II storyline currently unfolding across Marvel's comic book line.

That storyline sees Stark up against Captain Marvel over the issue of preemptively arresting those likely to commit crimes; while Stark is mysteriously absent from the Iron Man comics following the storyline, Captain Marvel will receive a comic book relaunch in early 2017 to deal with a raised profile as the result of events in the story's finale.

Infamous Iron Man is far from the first time Marvel has pushed the hero-gone-bad idea; Tony Stark himself became Superior Iron Man in 2014 after a storyline in which heroes and villains had their morality magically flipped, with the title of that series a play on the successful Superior Spider-Man series, in which Peter Parker's body was controlled by Doctor Octopus. Currently, the Captain America: Steve Rogers comic book features an original Captain America whose past has been altered so that he works for the Hydra terrorist organization.

Of course, whether Doom will definitively be a villain in the new series is also unknown. Over at Marvel's competitors DC, Lex Luthor is trying to redeem himself and claim the title of Superman in the current Action Comics comic book series, so it's certainly possible Doom could choose that route … although, if he does, he might want to change his surname to sound less foreboding.